In radio access technologies, e.g., according to a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) mobile telecommunications standard such as Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) or Universal Terrestrial Telecommunications System (UMTS), or according to a further evolved mobile telecommunications standard such as 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution), a mobile communication device, also referred to as user equipment (UE), receiving signals from one base station needs to scan the available radio spectrum for other base stations. In this way, the UE is enabled to identify and select the base station offering the best performance.
The scanning is typically done by listening, at given time intervals, for other base stations in the same frequency band or even in other frequency bands. This needs to be done even during an ongoing data session or voice session, without disturbing the ongoing session. For this purpose, it is known to use a compressed mode for the data transmission to the UE. For example, a compressed mode is described in 3GPP technical specification (TS) 25.212, section 4.4. The compressed mode generates a transmission gap or empty slot in the data signal of the ongoing session, which can then be used for performing measurements on other frequencies.
However, the known implementations of scanning using the compressed mode typically have a negative impact, e.g., on the load in the mobile communication network or on the data throughput. It is therefore desirable to reduce usage of the compressed mode as far as possible.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques which allow for efficiently implementing processes of scanning for base stations.